Card Game

Isle of Trains: All Aboard

Welcome to the Isle of Trains, where you are the conductor, and constructor of one of the island’s locomotives. You’ll build trains and load a range of goods to complete contracts across the island, and also deliver passengers to their destinations.

Isle of Trains: All Aboard is a card-based engine building game where cards have multiple uses: You can use cards as locomotives, freight cars, passenger cars, or buildings to improve the effectiveness and abilities of your train. Cards can also be spent to pay for the construction of your new train cars and buildings, or you can use your cards as cargo and load them onto available freight cars.

You will also have a range of passengers who want to be taken to different destinations. You will draw these passengers at random from a bag when you build passenger cars and certain locomotives. You can then load passengers into any available passenger car. When passengers are delivered to their destinations, they will give you an instant powerful bonus!

Loading cargo and passengers into opponents’ trains is important on the Isle of Trains as it’ll also gain you extra bonuses that turn! But this will help the other train conductors get a little closer to completing their goals, by giving them the cargo or passengers, which they can then use for deliveries and big end game points!

The game ends when a certain number of contracts have been completed, or a certain number of passengers are delivered. You win by scoring the most points, which you earn by building up your train, completing contracts, and delivering passengers.

Isle of Trains: All Aboard is all about balancing the need to upgrade your train, with loading cargo or passengers onto opponent’s train for big bonuses, and delivering cargo and passengers to their destinations before anyone else. Build your engine effectively enough to be remembered as the greatest train conductor on the Isle of Trains!

Disney Villainous: Introduction to Evil

Disney Villainous: Introduction to Evil features the same gameplay as Disney Villainous, but this game features only four villains instead of six — Maleficent, Captain Hook, Ursula and Prince John – in a limited-edition version that features streamlined gameplay crafted to help first-time players.

In the game, each player takes control of a villain with its own villain deck, fate deck, player board, and 3D character. On a turn, you move your character to a different location on your player board, takeing one or more of the actions visible on that space (often by playing cards from your hand), then refill your hand to four cards. Cards are allies, items, effects, conditions, and (for some characters) curses. You need to use your cards to fulfill your unique win condition, which sometimes involves overcoming the hero from your villain's particular Disney film.

Disney Villainous: Introduction to Evil is meant to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Disney, with the new box design featuring Ursula, lustrous movers, and platinum rainbow-foil packaging as well as a Disney100 sticker.

Flamecraft

Artisan dragons, the smaller and magically talented versions of their larger (and destructive) cousins, are sought by shopkeepers so that they may delight customers with their flamecraft. You are a Flamekeeper, skilled in the art of conversing with dragons, placing them in their ideal home and using enchantments to entice them to produce wondrous things. Your reputation will grow as you aid the dragons and shopkeepers, and the Flamekeeper with the most reputation will be known as the Master of Flamecraft.

In Flamecraft, 1-5 players take on the role of Flamekeepers, gathering items, placing dragons and casting enchantments to enhance the shops of the town. Dragons are specialized (bread, meat, iron, crystal, plant and potion) and the Flamekeepers know which shops are the best home for each. Visit a shop to gain items and a favor from one of the dragons there. Gathered items can be used to enchant a shop, gaining reputation and the favors of all the dragons in the shop. If you are fortunate enough to attract fancy dragons then you will have opportunities to secure even more reputation.

—description from publisher

Mindbug: First Contact

In Mindbug, you summon hybrid creatures and send them to battle against your opponent — but when you summon a creature, the opponent may use one of their Mindbugs to take control of it. Outwit your opponent in a fascinating tactical duel in which having the best cards and playing them at the wrong time can be deadly for yourself.

Cards in Mindbug represent weird creatures that all come with unique and powerful abilities such as a Compost Dragon, a Snail Hydra, or a Kangasaurus Rex. Each player starts the game with ten creature cards (five in hand and five in a draw pile) and tries to use them to reduce the opponent's life total to zero. In addition, every player receives two Mindbug cards that can be used to mind control an opposing creature when it is played. This innovative Mindbug mechanism is the core of the game and leads to a unique decision-making process that makes Mindbug feel utterly different from any other card game.

Playing a card doesn't require any resources in Mindbug. As a result, the game has no ramp-up phase (such as gathering resources) and doesn't require weak cards. Since there is also no deck-building, you can start playing right away from a single deck. There is also no unfair advantage as players draw cards from the same deck and always get the chance to mind control the strongest opposing cards. In the end, it all comes down to your own decisions, making the game extremely fair and competitive at the same time.

—description from the publisher

Bohnanza: Dahlias

Bohnanza: Dahlias is a special edition of Bohnanza for 3-5 players that features the same gameplay as the original design.

In the game, you plant, then harvest flower cards in order to earn coins. Each player starts with a hand of random flower cards, and each card has a number on it corresponding to the number of that type of flower in the deck. Unlike in most other card games, you can't rearrange the order of cards in hand, so you must use them in the order that you've picked them up from the deck — unless you can trade them to other players, which is the heart of the game.

On a turn, you must plant the first one or two cards in your hand into the "fields" in front of you. Each field can hold only one type of flower, so if you must plant a type of flower that's not in one of your fields, then you must harvest a field to make room for the new arrival. This usually isn't good! Next, you reveal two cards from the deck, and you can then trade these cards as well as any card in your hand for cards from other players. You can even make future promises for cards received right now! After all the trading is complete — and all trades on a turn must involve the active player — then you end your turn by drawing cards from the deck and placing them at the back of your hand.

When you harvest flowers, you receive coins based on the number of cards in that field and the "meter" for that particular type of flower. Flip over 1-4 cards from that field to transform them into coins, then place the remainder of the cards in the discard pile. When the deck runs out, shuffle the discards, playing through the deck two more times. At the end of the game, everyone can harvest their fields, then whoever has earned the most coins wins.